The invention relates to an apparatus for physically processing and/or heating media, in particular liquids.
The pretreatment of liquid and gaseous media in technologies that work with water and with other chemical compounds (methane, alcohol, ethanol, and others), elemental substances (pure hydrogen gas, gaseous helium, and others), homogeneous compounds (air, seawater, aqueous solutions, such as saline solution, copper vitriol solution, and others), colloidal compounds (milk, blood, and others), heterogeneous compounds (suspension, emulsion, foam, aerosols), is known. These excitation devices are used in biochemistry, in petrochemical technologies, in chemical technologies, and others, in which the media are of an organic, inorganic, polar, nonpolar, natural, or synthetic type.
Present technologies that work with liquid or gaseous media (whether as material to be processed, or as adjuvant material that improves the technological conditions) are defined by energy bonds in the molecule and between the molecules. The magnitude of their decisive properties, such as fluidity, electrical conductivity, surface tension, etc., depends on those energy bonds. Because of their broad application and because they are so numerous, these technologies cannot be specified concretely within the scope of this invention. They involve liquids and gases in the full scope of their molecular composition, such as water, soda, acid, organic and inorganic liquids, hydrocarbons, in particular fuels, crude oil, gasoline, kerosene, mineral oils, liquid fertilizer, and so forth.
The technologies that have to do with the media listed, such as burning, combustion, heating, cooling, the preparation of solutions and colloids, and segregation, such as distillation, refining, evaporation, sedimentation, and the like, are energy-, time- and material-consuming.
Present technologies that require a temperature change (heating, cooling) of the medium are implemented by means of solid, liquid and gaseous fuels, electrical energy, sunlight, heat from the earth (geothermia), heat pumps, and so forth.
The disadvantage of present methods is their high energy consumption. Moreover, in combustion, fuels have adverse effects on the environment. In the case of automotive traffic, air traffic, and ship traffic, the effects are multiplied and worse.
If water is used as a heating medium or in the production of steam, for instance for driving a turbine, this medium requires complex processing in order to reduce some or all of the elements. Possible ventilation, especially because of the formation of crusts, must also be provided. In this processing, damage occurs to the surface of the technical systems, the functional surfaces of combustion chambers, and the machines, such as radiators, heat exchangers, heating equipment, and heaters.
In heating with water in accordance with the PCT application WO 2007/045487, the heating is slow, and sometimes unwanted. This reference was the subject of further research, especially because of unexpected interactions in the type of heating, which was directed to changes in the treated medium. The physical changes found led to use in further implementation, such as in distilled water, demineralized water, geothermal water, alcohol, oils, gases, crude oil, gasoline, kerosene, methane, biogas and other media named in the aforementioned application.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,427,544, a magneto-electrochemical reactor for water preparation is described, which is located on a nonmagnetic pipeline having an inlet and an outlet. A DC source is mounted on the outside of the pipeline. In the interior, there is a rotating turbine, which is disposed on ferromagnetic rods that are supported in the pipeline. The rotating turbine generates electric current, which acts on the formation of lime in the pipeline and which, in energy equipment and heat exchangers, forms a protective layer that prevents crusts from forming.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,627 shows a method and an apparatus for electrolytic treatment of materials; the material to be treated is stored in an electrolyte on which an electromagnetic field acts. On the surface of the material to be treated, this field triggers electromagnetic and electrokinetic forces, which are capable of generating chemical and physical changes in the material to be treated. This involves, for one thing, a reactor, supplemented with an electrolyte, that has treatment materials, such as ions, acids, bases, and the like, with an optimal pH value, and also has a takeup electrode or a mixing device and a reducer. The reactor has a number of possible embodiments, and the takeup electrode is connected to a cathodic metal. This method is employed for cementing the surfaces of the material to be treated.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,551 shows a method for extracting gallium from alkaline solutions. This involves a method for obtaining gallium from solutions for further use, for instance, as components for semiconductor elements of thermometers and the like. It also involves an apparatus, which comprises a container with an anode and a liquid metal cathode, and the electrolyte contains a gallium solution. An electromagnetic field speeds up the displacement of gallium from alkali electrolytes to the electrodes.
US Patent Application 2007/0029261 shows a method and an apparatus for water preparation by electromagnetic waves for the sake of removing lime. It involves part of a pipleline with an electromagnetic induction winding, which is connected to the source of the electromagnetic signal. The electromagnetic field is generated in the interior of the pipeline.
German patent disclosure DE 888537 shows a method for separating solids out of solutions, in order to avert the formation of deposits on the heating and cooling bodies in conjunction with an anode and a cathode. The technology is implemented using the action of magnets, whose magnetic fields, whether DC or AC, are generated or formed by a permanent magnet. In an alternative embodiment, the effect is augmented with a high-frequency field.
British patent GB 2 433 267 shows an apparatus with an electrostatic electromagnetic field and an induction field. This involves an electrostatic reduction device, with a combined electromagnetic generator that is connected to a winding. The winding is formed on the outside over the entire circumference of a container in which a reactant is disposed. The AC generator is connected in the container to the AC electrode. The AC generator is connected to the base of the container, and the reactant has both a liquid and a solid aggregate state.
Moldovan patent disclosure MD 4055 shows a method and an apparatus for softening natural mineral water. In the apparatus, there is a separate chamber for affecting water by means of a hollow cathode with a water inlet. The cathode is disposed on a winding, which is connected to a converter, a source of high-frequency magnetic impulses. The water treated by the cathode can be let out through a valve. However, the water can also flow in the opposite direction over the outer circumference of the cathode and be let out via a second, continuous outlet. Between the anode and the cathode is a ceramic membrane; a separate anode chamber has its own inlet and outlet and is connected to the positive pole of a DC source. The negative pole of the DC source is connected to the cathode. This disclosure also describes the parameters for the electrochemical treatment of the mineral water in that apparatus.
The common objective of all the aforementioned documents is to prevent the formation of a crust on the pipelines by the action of a magnetic or electromagnetic field on the water, in conjunction with static or moving components in the flow direction. A further group of documents relates to the changes upon the takeup of negative and positive ions by electrodes, or the material to be treated with an enrichment of the surface with these elements, with the goal of achieving cementation or the formation of an antioxidation protective layer, or the recovery of elements from the solutions (electrolytes).
The object of the invention is the processing of a medium, whether in liquid or gaseous form, in order to alter changes in force and energy in the molecule and between the molecule and the medium, changes that are the cause of physical and/or chemical properties of the medium.